


Flora

by Dusty_Forgotten (DustyForgotten)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, Inspired by Music, Plot Twists, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 12:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12012303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustyForgotten/pseuds/Dusty_Forgotten
Summary: Early in their relationship, Crowley bought her flowers all the time.Lilith thought them a waste of money— but so did Crowley, and that’s what made it funny, bringing her flowers now.





	Flora

**Author's Note:**

> [Fleurs Captives by Nicole Dollanganger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlG7VQvRjPI)

Early in their relationship, Crowley bought her flowers all the time.

Lilith thought them a waste of money— but so did Crowley, and that’s the joke. They were the least sentimental people imaginable; to them, Christmas was a corporate gimmick, and Valentine’s was only the day before chocolate went on sale. They exchanged gifts on birthdays, though, because although unromantic, they were both absolute narcissists. That’s what made it funny, bringing her flowers now. Didn’t pay for them anymore— she wouldn’t notice— and every dollar he wrung out of his job was funneled into the upstart for his own company. 

There was a house with a patch of daisies just up the street.  He’d been snagging them so long, they were starting to look sparse. Apparently, the owner had also noticed, because Crowley was snapping one of the stems when the gardener turned the hose on him.

“Do you have any idea how much this tie cost!?” Crowley snapped, flailing against the stream.

“More than a bouquet of daisies!” retorted the homeowner, nozzle held defensively— but he had arms like a Marine, and could undoubtedly pulverize Crowley the office jock. “Who are you?”

He was probably going to file a report or something. Luckily, his common name wasn’t his legal. “Crowley.”

“I’m Castiel,” he replied, unasked. He dipped the hose slightly, strong face softening. “So, who are the daisies for? Your girlfriend?” Crowley was considering what exactly she was to him these days when Castiel continued, “Roses are more appropriate for anyone but a child.”

That, she’s certainly not. He once bought her a dozen white roses (because that was the only colour besides black she didn’t think garish) after a fight, thorns still on, and said they were almost as prickly as she. Lilith left them in a vase, months after they’d died dry, only discarded when they’d finally lost all the petals after being jostled during a particularly intense makeout session.

He smiled at the dripping daisies in his hand, and shrugged at Castiel. “Can’t put them back, now.”

“She better be pretty.”

Natural blonde, ivory skin— she modelled, back in college. He still had the centrefold, laying around somewhere. He should really have that framed. Laminated, at least. “Pretty doesn’t come close.”

“Pretty enough to ruin my garden?”

“Pretty enough to burn Versailles.”

He dropped the hose off the side of his stoop, and came down the sidewalk. Black hair looked feather-soft, but it was military-clipped. So was his stride. “I don’t believe you.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“I want to meet her,” he insisted.

Crowley found his teeth clamped together when he opened his mouth to bite something back. Who wouldn’t want to meet Cleopatra reincarnated? Normally, even the bastard known as Crowley would spare an obvious social deficient from the likes of this, but the building rainclouds had his mood sour enough to take it out on the soldier. “Come along, then.”

Crowley held out his hand, just to be a prat. Crazy greenskeeper took it.

He couldn’t recall a single time Lilith held his hand. She always preferred to wrap herself around his arm, looking like a brainless accessory because she hated most people and left him to deal with them. She’d dig her nails into his bicep whenever he said something obnoxious, and Crowley being Crowley, went home from most dates with bruises dotting his arm like track marks. 

“What’s her name?” Castiel questioned, humidity sticking their palms together as they strode down the street. Either that, or one of them was sweating.

“Lilith.” The first demon, first daughter of a Satanic drug addict. First person Crowley considered tolerating for the rest of his life.

There was thankful silence for a moment. “How’d you meet?”

Company New Year’s Eve party, way out of her date’s league. She cackled when he made an inappropriate crack about the cut of her dress, and he spun her right from her date’s arms for a New Year’s kiss. His knuckle crack around Castiel’s, but he doesn’t seem fazed. “Work.”

“What do you do?”

“Business administration.”

“Do you like it?”

“Do you ever shut up?”

Castiel fell into stride beside him, with his left, left, left-right-left pace. Stoic soldier with a cute little garden to smooth over the PTSD said, “I’ll take that as a no.”

Crowley was a walking faucet of stress and bad coping mechanisms. His liver was shot from the scotch, his lungs from the cigarettes, and his back because he slouched when he sat nine hours a day. Lilith called him pathetic, and called him to pick her drunk ass up at two in the morning. 

She was worth it.

It wasn’t a far walk from their Section 8 shithole to the park, but quite a way’s from Crowley’s new place. If Lilith wasn’t passed out in his backseat, she could usually be found barhopping, but on occasion, she came down to the park. It was overgrown back then, even worse these days, all the metal equipment rusted and too-hot to touch until well into the night. It was always ethereal to find her here, high heels abandoned beside the broken slide, perched on one of the knotted swings, swaying in the breeze.

The wind kicked up around them, storm coming to a head. They’re sure to be caught in it, and that didn’t concern Crowley nearly as much as he hoped it to annoy Castiel. The firm grip slipped from his hand, halted on the border of public and municipal property, and Crowley took only a few steps further before tossing the ratty flowers at what was left of the wood jungle gym.

“What’s this supposed to—”

“This is where she was shot.”

Blessed silence. She was out in the middle of the night again— he told her she’d get mugged, looking like that in this part of town, but damn if Lilith listened to another soul in her life. Apparently the local gangbangers had been hiding their drug deals in plain sight, and she was just…

Crowley had fallen asleep on the work he had taken home. As much as Lilith loathed it, damn if he ever listened. Gunfire wasn’t an oddity in their neighbourhood; he slept right through it. “This is where she died, so this is where I left her ashes.”

It was almost a year ago; there was nothing left of her here, but there’s nothing left of her anywhere. It was probably morbid, but so was she.

Cautious steps through knee-high grass was not lost in the sound of long-awaited rainfall. Quietly, Castiel took his hand.


End file.
